College Girl (11 page)

Slowly, painfully, I approached
the spot where he was standing. I wanted to make some sort of joke about all
the problems on my homework being wrong, but when I finally reached him, I was
catatonic. I could barely even get my fingers to work. The last time I could
remember being so speechless was in fifth grade when Mom forced me to audition
for the school play—when I had just stood there, staring stupidly, before
running off stage.

His eyes cut through me, like he
could hear exactly what I was thinking. I handed him the paper and then walked
straight out the door, trying not to cry like an idiot as I walked. I wasn’t
even sure if I was headed in the right direction. A few minutes later, when I
heard footsteps behind me, I stopped, but I didn’t turn around.

Ryan walked around and stopped in
front of me. It took a few seconds, but I finally worked up the nerve to look
up at him. Then I regretted it. His features were deadly serious, and I
realized that I already missed the way his mouth would curl up in a half smile
anytime I said something snarky. I bit my lip, knowing that if I bit it any
harder, I would taste blood. Feeling like I was being strangled, I opened my
mouth and forced the words out.

“I can’t do this anymore.”

“Why?” he asked in a tone as
serious as the look on his face.

“Because.”

I felt a tear leak from the corner
of my eye and swiped at it.

“Not good enough.”

I was suddenly enraged, which gave
me energy.

“What do you mean
not good enough
?” I snapped. “Fuck you.
I’ll decide whatever I want.”

“Alex, just tell me why, and I’ll
walk away.”

I shook my head and looked down,
afraid to say anything else. I had a million fucking reasons, but the only one
I could think of right now was the worst.

“Because I think I’m falling in
love with you,” I blurted.

I recognized the absolute
ridiculousness of this statement. I barely fucking knew Ryan Bennett. But the
way I figured it, if I was about to burn the whole thing down, then I might as
well go out in a blaze of glory—and his silence told me everything I
needed to know.

It was better to hurt now, I told
myself. Because if I had hidden my feelings and waited a day, a week, a month,
then it would have been a million times worse. I turned and started walking,
stunned by how empty my chest felt. When a pair of hands clamped down on my
shoulders, I wanted to break free and run.

“Don’t … please,” I whispered.

Ryan

I turned her in my arms and
slipped my hand under her chin, lifting her face until I could look into her
eyes, which glowed green as the tears streaked down her cheeks. I hadn’t
thought there was a single thing she could say that would force me to let her
go.

…
I think I’m falling in love with you
.

Fuck, I had been so wrong. I
released my grip on her and gestured for her to follow me.

“I’ll take you back to Mercer,” I
said quietly.

She swallowed, and I started
walking. I turned back once to see if she was following me. The look of shock
on her face cut through me. In that moment, I knew there was a special place in
hell reserved for me, because I could see the damage I had just done. I could
see it in her eyes.
I
was the reason
why this girl wouldn’t be able to trust herself.
I
was the reason she would probably spend the rest of her
undergraduate career questioning the intention of every male she came across.
And, yet, some sick part of me was congratulating myself. It was the old “
If I can’t have you, then no one will
”
bullshit.

But she had said the one thing
that could break this fucking spell—this goddamn, unfamiliar need to
possess her. I had never—not once—felt this way about Gretchen or
any other female in my life. But that wasn’t the real problem. The real problem
was that I didn’t know if I was even
capable
of love.

For almost two decades—since
Reece had died—I had known that I didn’t fall in and out of love like
other people. Maybe it was why I had chosen Gretchen, someone so self-involved
and broken that neither of us could damage the other one.

This was why I had to let Alex go.
I wasn’t a monster. I didn’t
want
to
hurt her. I just knew that I couldn’t be what she needed, what she deserved.
Fuck, if I had the power to, I would choose her first boyfriend for her.
Someone who wouldn’t hurt her.
Someone who
wasn’t me.

When we reached the bike, I took
the spare helmet and placed it over her head, struck again by how tiny and
delicate she was. My hands looked monstrous in contrast to her small, pale ones
as I got on and offered her my hand. When she reached out, her hand was icy
cold. I gunned the engine, and her arms tightened reflexively around my waist.
Again, I had no delusions. Her grip didn’t have anything to do with need for
me; it had everything to do with fear of two-wheeled transportation. By the
time I pulled up in front of Mercer, she scrambled off the bike as fast as
possible, fumbling with the helmet before holding it out to me.

Then she ran.

###

I would have liked to say that I
had caught up to her and wiped away her tears, lied to her—told Alex that
I loved her. But I hadn’t. Instead, I had gone back to the house, where I
killed a bottle and a half of wine and fell into bed.

Wednesday morning, after dragging
my pathetic ass out of bed, I took a shower and waited until the lunch hour to
go to the bursar’s office. Brenda, who typically ate at her desk unless Jess
showed up to take her out, smiled when she saw me. Her expression quickly
faded, and with no one else in the office, she didn’t bother to sugarcoat it.

“You look like shit,” she said
matter-of-factly.

“Thanks. How’s the wine?”

“Divine. Are you going to owe us
another case by the time you leave here?”

“I am.”

Brenda had curly blonde hair,
brown eyes, a sunny disposition, and a general willingness to help others. I
had no idea what she saw in Jess, who ate, slept, and breathed math. Without
explaining why, I told her that I needed Alexis Reed dropped from Robertson’s
Calculus lecture. Brenda gave me a long look before beginning to type.

“It’s past the drop-dead, so it’ll
leave her with an incomplete on her transcript. And she’ll be dropped down to
part-time status.”

I shook my head and took out my
checkbook. I had already taken care of the incomplete. Robertson wouldn’t even
notice that I had signed off on one student, effectively eliminating her
existence from the course.

“Isn’t there a loophole to keep
her at full-time through the end of the quarter?”

“I guess, but her account won’t be
refunded.”

“Fine. Can I write a check and
have it credited for her spring term?”

She nodded and whistled.

“Thank you,” I said.

“This is a pretty big favor. Is
this girl going to be happy that you just funded the rest of her freshman
year?”

“Probably not.”

Brenda frowned.

“Ryan, are you okay?”

“No.”

I turned to leave, calling over my
shoulder that I’d drop by with another case of wine. Next up, I went to the
department and filed some of the paperwork for my thesis, which reminded me of
what Alex had said.

Studying
math
? Are you
insane?

Not only was she a decade younger,
but we also had nothing in common.
Then
why can’t you stop thinking about her, dickhead
? But I couldn’t answer my
own question. Didn’t want to.

During office hours, half a dozen
students showed up at the cramped cubicle I shared with Jess, all of them
asking what they could do to pass Robertson’s course. Knowing he would fail
roughly forty percent of the class, if not more, I restrained myself from
saying, “
Pray
.” Deep down, I was
waiting for Alex to show up. I was waiting for her to yell at me, to call me a
prick. I wanted her to hit me. I wanted any excuse to drag her against me and devour
her.

This was why I had just dropped
her from Robertson’s lecture. Because, ethically, there was no way I could have
graded her exams and then taken her home at night. Images of her naked beneath
me filled my head, and I couldn’t take it. As soon as the last student left, I
grabbed my jacket and went out to the bike.

Heading off campus, I rode out of
town toward the orchards and into the hills. In a month or so the blooms would
begin to return. Right now, though, everything was gray and dead, the trees
empty and lifeless. Reaching the dam, I stepped off the bike and looked at the
wall of concrete and metal, imagining the infinite calculations that had gone
into making sure it wouldn’t fail and flood the valley below.

I had been going through life the
same way—making sure there were no weak spots. Then I had seen Alex
chewing her lip in the front row of Robertson’s class, and everything had been
fucked since that moment. If I had just wanted sex, I could have easily screwed
her roommate, or Gretchen … or any number of willing college girls. But I
couldn’t stop thinking of this one girl. I had friends from undergrad, most of
them scattered across the country now, who had never slept with the same woman
twice. Thinking of James, I laughed.

James was the definition of
lothario
. James McDevitt IV, my roommate
from freshman year of college, was a dick.
At least as far as
women were concerned.
Fuck, he had even hit on Becca—my
sister—at her own wedding. And if I hadn’t known that my sister could
demolish him with one swift look, I would have had to beat the living shit out
of him.

I inhaled. The fresh air felt
good, but it hadn’t done as much to clear my
head
as I
had wanted it to. I got back on the bike and rode down the hill, stopping at
the grocery store across from the dorms to pick up a case of dog food for Finn.
On the way back to the house, I passed by Mercer, hoping—like a fucking
fool—to catch sight of Alex. When I pulled up in front of the house a
minute later and saw her, I thought I was having a hallucination. She was
wearing a pair of tight black pants, running shoes, and a hoodie—and she
was sitting on my front steps looking enraged. I was ridiculously and stupidly
happy to see her as she jumped up and stalked across the lawn toward me.

“What the
fuck
makes you think you have any right to mess with my life?” she
demanded.

I had to give it to
Brenda—she was efficient. I walked toward Alex. She wasn’t yelling, but I
was sure that was coming since she was practically shaking with rage.

“I just got an e-mail on my school
account saying that I’ve been dropped from Calculus! Which puts me four units
short of full-time. It was
you
,
wasn’t it?”

I nodded.

“Well, who made you ruler of the
fucking universe?”

I nearly laughed, but I stopped
myself. Walking up to her, I took her by the arm and pulled her toward the
house. When I got the front door open, I propelled her over the threshold and
shut the door behind us to prevent the neighbors from calling the cops. I
walked away from her, trying not to be as deliriously happy as I was that she
was here.

“I get it,” she continued. “You
don’t want to deal with the lovesick little freshman anymore. But
seriously—what was I going to do? Stalk you?
Make
you love me back? I would have sat in the back and finished
failing, and then you would have never had to see me again.”

It was like she had punched me in
the solar plexus, my muscles tightening painfully at the thought of never
seeing her again.

“Don’t you have anything to say?”
she demanded.

“You’ll keep full-time status … and
Calculus will never show up on your transcript.”

She blinked, tears running down
her cheeks.

“W-what? How?”

“And I paid for your spring term.”

“Why?” she gasped.

“Because I’m a selfish prick.
Because I want to kiss you.
And touch you. I
want
to watch you coming in my arms.” I
threw my arms up. “Why else?”

I laughed, and it sounded harsh
even to my ears. She took a quick breath and backed up a step. From the look on
her face, I could tell she had just realized how fucking depraved I was.

“Alex, I only have so much
willpower. I’ve tried to be good. I’ve tried not to want you. But I’m sick of
trying.”

I crossed the room in three steps
and lifted her against me with one arm. The contact with her body caused a wave
of relief to course through me. Running my fingers across her lips with my
other hand, I lowered my head to kiss her, coaxing her mouth open. Her hands
pushed against my shoulders, but when she tried to twist away, I stilled her
face with my palm. Then I reached down and swung her into my arms. In a matter
of seconds, I had kicked open the bedroom door and was easing her onto the bed
before following her down. I bit her bottom lip softly, desperate for the
response I knew it would cause. When she moaned, I smiled, pulling back to
watch her face. She opened her eyes, which were still bright with tears.

“Don’t,” she whispered.

“Why?”

“Because I
can’t
do this,” she said quietly. “I can’t feel the way I do and
pretend it isn’t killing me when you touch me. I’m not ready for casual sex, or
casual anything. … I-I
don’t
think I ever will be.”

“What I feel for you is anything
but casual, Alex.”

Hearing the inherent condescension
and simultaneous idiocy of my statement, I cringed inwardly.

“To you it would just be sex, but
it would be my first time. I didn’t expect to wait for marriage or anything
like that, but I did promise myself that I would wait until I really felt
something for that person … and he really felt something back.”

I was about to make another
dumb-ass comment, but I stopped myself just in time. Again, I couldn’t argue
with a goddamn thing she said, and there was something horrifying about
listening to the wisdom of someone ten years younger while I had the hard-on
from hell. I pushed myself up and wiped a hand over my face as she sat up and
moved away from me to the side of the bed. I looked over at her.

“Alex,
this
is why I let you go last night. It’s why I dropped you from
Robertson’s class. I don’t want to hurt you, but I can’t think rationally when
you’re anywhere near me.”

She nodded. Then she stood up and
walked out. A moment later I heard the front door close behind her. Tomorrow, I
would show up to Robertson’s class, and she wouldn’t be there. I got up and
walked to the backdoor. When I opened it, Finn bounded in and gave me a
reproachful look that said:
You’re a
dick, and you deserve to be alone
. And I couldn’t argue with my fucking
dog, either. Back in the bedroom, I took out the picture of Alex that I had
mercifully kept in the nightstand drawer. For a brief moment, I was grateful to
her fucking stalker for taking the last picture I might ever see of her.

I moped around the rest of the
fucking day, and then as I was eating canned soup as part of my penance, my
phone buzzed on the coffee table. Some stupid part of my brain told me it could
be Alex. Instead it was a text from McDevitt.

Landing in a town near u, muthafucker. Time 2
party
.

James worked for an Internet
startup—one whose shares hadn’t tanked after its IPO. He said he was in
sales, but as far as I could tell, his primary functions seemed to be traveling
from location to location, partying, picking up women, gambling, and drinking
heavily. He called me his grandmother because I wasn’t a complete wastrel like
him.

In my more self-righteous moments
I liked to think
of myself as a real human being and McDevitt
as an alien trying to impersonate one
. His problem was that he never
thought more than two seconds into the future. He’d get kicked out of one of
the nicest restaurants in New York City after a round of “ultimate cheers.” In
other words, he would smash his glass with his buddy’s, just to say he did it.
Or he’d tell the flight attendant on a trip from Chicago to L.A. that he needed
to update his membership in the mile-high club. Or he’d wake up in Vegas
without a shred of money or any memory of the preceding twelve hours.